We rode our bikes through New Bremen, Jake, Danny, Lee, and I, past the town limits, and in another mile turned west along a couple of dirt ruts overgrown with weeds. The quarry was on the far side of a line of birch trees that isolated the area even further. The rock that had been taken was red granite and the area around the quarry was littered with great jumbles of red spoil unsuitable for construction. To this day whenever I think of that quarry I have the sense of a place of deep and mindless wounding. When we pulled up I was dismayed to find a black ’32 Deuce Coupe parked near the break in the Cyclone fence which everyone used to access the quarry. The shattered headlights and taillights had been replaced.
“Morris Engdahl’s car,” Danny said.
“He’s probably out here torturing ducks,” I said.
Jake turned back disappointed. “Let’s go home.”
Danny and Lee turned their bikes with him.
“Not me,” I said. “I came here to swim.” I walked my bike to the fence and popped the kickstand down.
Jake opened his mouth then closed it then opened and closed it again and not a word came out. Like a fish trying to suck air.
“I don’t know,” Danny said. He sat astride his bike and looked with great uncertainty at the others.
Lee said, “You’re really going?”
“Hell, just watch me.” I ducked through the break in the fence and walked along a path worn in the weeds, walked slowly. In a minute I heard the sound of the others running to catch up.
At the western edge of the quarry was a large flat table of red rock that stood half a dozen feet above the water and was surrounded by willows that curtained it from view. This was the favorite place for swimming because the water dropped immediately and deeply and you could jump and dive from the rock without worrying about what might be under the surface and when you were ready to climb out there were natural steps and handholds in the face of the rock. I heard music coming from the willows, the tinny sound of a transistor radio on which Roy Orbison was singing Running Scared. We walked silently and in single file along the trail and when we reached the willows I held up my hand signaling the others to stop and I crept forward.
They lay on a big blanket that had been spread over the wide flat ledge of rock. Morris Engdahl in his white swimming trunks had pretty much glued himself to a girl who wore a red bathing suit and had long blond hair. On top of a cooler sat a couple of bottles of beer and the transistor radio which was now playing Del Shannon’s Runaway. While I stood watching from the shadows of the willows Morris Engdahl’s left hand crawled over the girl’s right breast like a big white spider and began to knead the fabric of her suit. In response she arched her back and pressed harder against him.
Though we were trying to be quiet Engdahl must have heard us because he turned his head in our direction. “Jesus, if it ain’t Frankfarter,” he said. “And Howdy D-D-D-Doody. And a couple of Mouseketeers. Getting a good eyeful?”
“We just came to swim,” I said.
Morris continued to lie atop the girl. “Yeah well we were here ahead of you,” he said. “So beat it.”
“There’s lots of room.”
“Let’s g-g-g-go,” Jake said.
“That’s a g-g-g-good idea,” Engdahl said with a laugh.
“Come on, Frank,” Danny said.
“No. We can swim here. There’s lots of room.”
Engdahl shook his head and finally rolled off the girl. “Not the way I see it,” he said.
I gestured to the others to follow me. “We’ll go around to the other side,” I told them.
“I don’t want them here at all, Morrie,” the girl said. She sat up and her breasts in her red suit stuck out big as traffic cones. Her lips were a ruby pout. She reached for one of the beers on the cooler.
“You heard her,” Engdahl said. “Get lost.”
“You get lost,” I said. “It’s a free country.”
“Who are these little creeps, Morrie?”
“His sister is Ariel Drum.”
“Ariel Drum?” The girl’s face took on a look as if she’d just bit into a sandwich made of cow dung. “God, what a skag.”
“She’s not a skag,” I shot back brilliantly, not entirely sure what the word even meant.
“Listen, you little shit,” Engdahl said. “Just because it’s a rich boy putting it to your sister, that don’t mean she ain’t a skag.”
“Nobody’s putting it to her,” I said and stepped toward Engdahl with my hands fisted. I spat out at the girl, “You’re the skag.”
“You going to let him call me that, Morrie?”
Engdahl got to his feet which were bare. He was a thin guy and white as biscuit dough but he was a head taller than me and had probably been in his share of fights and he didn’t look at all reluctant to bust my face wide open. In a swift panic of thought I figured I had two choices. One was to run. The other was to do what I did, which was to lower my shoulder and charge Morris Engdahl. I hit him square in the stomach, putting behind it the full force of my hundred and thirty pounds. I caught him off guard and together we tumbled into the water. I came up sputtering and swam fast back to the rock and climbed up before Engdahl had a chance to get his hands on me. I danced back to where the others stood and I spun around expecting Engdahl to be right behind me. He wasn’t. He was still in the water, flailing desperately.
“He can’t swim,” the girl cried at us. She was on her knees, bent low toward the water, and I could see a good deal of her breasts and for a moment that view was far more riveting than the question of Morris Engdahl’s fate. In the next moment Jake was shaking a dead willow branch that was a good eight feet long in my face. I grabbed it and leaped to the edge of the rock and extended the end toward Engdahl.
I yelled, “Grab it!”
His eyes had gone mostly white and his arms beat at the water around him shattering the surface into flying diamonds and he was coughing hard and I was afraid he was beyond having sense enough to save himself. But he managed to grasp the end of the branch. I pulled and the girl grabbed the branch too and pulled with me and together we hauled Engdahl back to the rock where his hands found purchase. He held to the stone a long time with most of him still in the water while he caught his breath then he began a slow climb out. He reached the top of the rock where I stood dripping wet in my shorts and T-shirt and sneakers. All of us stared at him in wordless fixation. His breathing was deep and raspy and his eyes held a desperate look. He brushed the long black hair out of his face.
He sprang forward and grabbed me. He took two big fistfuls of my T-shirt, squeezing the thin cotton so viciously that he wrung out water. His lips were pressed tightly together and I was amazed he could speak through them but he did. He said, “I’m going to kill you.”